[XVI]
TRICLINIUM—The Dining-room
Aristippus, Lurco
This dialogue is connected with the two following dialogues. For this contains descriptions of the master of a feast and his dining-room, the next of the banquet itself, and the third, drunkenness. It has two parts—the introduction and description (narratio). Triclinium is so called from having three dining-couches (lectus). For, of old, those about to breakfast or dine were accustomed to arrange couches for lying on, for the most part three. See Castilionius in book 6; Vitruvius, cap. 5; Baysius de Vasculis. Aristippus was the disciple of Socrates, from whom was derived the Cyrenaic teaching. For he lived in ease, sumptuously, voluptuously. He sought out every luxury of perfumes, clothes, women, and counted life happy in so far as it was full of pleasure.
παριόντα ποτε αὐτὸν λάχανα πλύνων Διογένης
ἔσκωψε καί φησιν: εἰ ταῦτα ἔμαθες προσφέρεοθαι
οὐκ ἂν τυράννων αὐλὰς ἐθεράπευες. Ὁ δέ, καὶ σύ, εἶπεν,
εἴπερ ᾔδεις ἀνθρώποις ὁμιλεῖν, οὐκ ἂν λάχανα ἔπλυνες.[68]
Diog. Laert. i. 68.